Chicago is home to many dance companies, but none of them are quite like RE|dance group. The close-knit cohort returns with the premiere of Michael Estanich’s “A Delicate Hand” at Hamlin Park Fieldhouse March 7-15, a work that delves into the company’s philosophical process of dance creation.
A quartet threaded in and out of one another as the audience took its seats in Links Hall Friday. Using contact improvisation in a stationary clump downstage, Jeanine Durning’s latest choreographic performance, “Invitation Situation,” shattered our formal introduction expectations by pressing play before spectators entered. In, out, around and through, four women—Andee Scott, Mary Williford-Shade, Heidi Brewer and Clare Croft—negotiated the same space as a cloak of silence muted the room. Like a mother giving a stern glance to her child, the movement told us what time it was.
MUTED blends dissimilar experience of being - without a voice. A captivating concert with two dissimilar works in its dynamic.The program features the return of ENLIVEN, premiered fall 2023, highlighting energy in motion. This East/West fusion dance work will also be performed at the Seattle International Dance Festival (SIDF) this summer. In contrast with ENLIVEN, MUTED is a world premiere by Ginny Ching-Yin Lo that explores complexity of being muted, muting someone, and telepathic connection.
About Identity Performing Arts
New Zealand contemporary dance company Black Grace makes their Chicago debut on March 1st at the Harris Theater at Millenium Park including a family matinee on March 2nd. The group will present “Paradise Rumour” (2023), choreographed by director Neil Ieremia. Both performances will transport audiences to the Pacific Islands in what promises to be a culturally rich and dynamic tour.
Tremor is artist and composer Samita Sinha’s latest performance work. In the piece, Sinha explores what she describes as “the practice of attuning oneself to the raw material of vibration and its emergence in space, as well as unfolding the possibilities that arise from encounters between this sonic material and other individuals.” Tremor is born from Sinha’s practice of decomposing, distilling, and transforming Indian vocal traditions through the body, employing sound as a vessel that harnesses and liberates energy through oneself.
This is an opera, but what is an opera? If opera is defined simply as “big work,” what could be blacker? FORCE! features a live band that blends gospel, folk, pop, and jazz, with experimental dance, song, and the spoken word. As the work unfolds, characters reveal layered interiors creating a strange sisterhood with the power to disintegrate walls that blooms in the shadows of the prison industrial complex. As the artists manifest the free worlds of which they dream on stage, their voices resound with collective power.
The Lyric Opera House lit up with excitement last Thursday, February 15th, as the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago premiered “Studies in Blue,” a collection of three energetic works that test the limits of classical ballet and reflect the shared human experiences of loss, love, friendship and sense of place.
Chicago Dance Health Fund, formerly Chicago Dancers United, strives to improve the lives of dance professionals by cultivating pathways to holistic wellness of the body, mind, and spirit and providing meaningful financial support to Chicago’s dance community. Since 1992, we have come together to raise critical funding and awareness to secure our community’s future.
Running and maintaining a professional dance company is no easy feat. Many come and many go. That’s why we celebrate those companies who, through quality of work, dedication and business savvy, have managed to stay in operation against economic hardships, global Pandemics and shifting politics— companies like Cerqua Rivera Dance Theatre.